Mia Baker, a new and upcoming Golf Influencer @miaellax, is bringing a fresh stance on women’s golf as she shakes up the golfing industry in 2020. Having only started playing golf in November 2019, she’s already accrued over 1.5K new followers in just over a month as they support her on her mission to promote and disrupt women’s golf this year.
Read our interview with Mia below ⛳️
You’ve had a lot of traction since you started Golf Influencing! How did you get started?
It’s quite a funny story actually! My boyfriend and his Dad especially, are avid golfers. I’d more or less never picked up a golf club until summer 2019 when they invited me onto a course to drive round in the buggy. The course was stunning and watching other people play really made me want to have a go. It wasn’t long until they invited me to the range where his Dad taught me how to hold a club, to stand, and how to hit a ball. Fast forward to September 2019, my boyfriend’s mum offered to buy me some golf shoes for my birthday to get me started and encourage me to start playing. To my shock, what was on offer was terrible in both style, options and sizes. I even visited one of the largest golf retailers who had to turn me away because they didn’t stock a single item for women in their retail stores. I’m a huge advocate for equal opportunities and so it was at this point I realised something needed to change.
Is this when you started your instagram account?
So actually what happened, I went out to HK and Japan for a holiday in November, and was taken aback by the amount of women’s golf out there. It was incredible! This was a market that had seen huge success, exactly what was needed to bring back to UK. I ended up buying some golf shoes out there and when I returned, I was motivated more than ever to start golffluencing and documenting my journey. So I started my golf journey on 29th November 2019 with a mission to disrupt women’s golf in 2020.
That’s awesome! So what are your plans?
There are a number of things really. The first one is about working with brands to help them offer more for women in terms of golf clothing, fashion, style and options. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried buying golf clothing for women, but it’s like men’s clothing with a women’s tag and then blasted in pink or floral colours. Women like to be fashionable, trendy, so I don’t understand why the golf offering skews so far away from this. It’s no wonder the women’s golf market is making a loss in the UK, no woman wants to buy men’s collared shirts! And they only end up buying it from the bargain rail because they have no choice due to the dress codes on courses and there’s no way the would want to pay full price for something like that.
My second goal is to encourage more women to pick up a club for the first time. I was extremely lucky to have been introduced to golf by family, but had I not, I probably would have never played. It’s quite intimidating for women if you’re up against people who have been playing since they were 5 and you’re standing there having never held a club. The fear of being worse than everyone else is enough to put anybody off! So my goal is to try and get women playing in an environment where there are other people in the same boat, there’s no shame or feeling like you’re rubbish, and then giving them the opportunity to make that decision whether they want to properly start playing golf or not.
And thirdly, it’s to change the golf stereotype that so many people have in their minds, which is that golf is for rich, old, white, men. Unfortunately we have a long way to go here, and in the short time I’ve been golffluencing I’ve received various derogatory and sexist comments, with some saying things like “women shouldn’t be allowed on a course” and “there’s a reason golf stands for ‘Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden’.” This doesn’t put me off in the slightest, in fact it only makes me feel motivated to protect other women from having to experience the same. I have received a really crazy about of support in such a short space of time. There are so many people with the same mentality and ready to break the stereotype alongside me, and I couldn’t be more thankful to everyone who has supported me on my journey already.
Wow that’s a lot on your plate! We love your insta already, so what can we look forward to this year?
As someone new to golf, I’ll be documenting my golfing journey with videos and showing that even though I have only just started playing, it’s not too late to start. I’ll be sharing some cool golf fashion inspo to demonstrate that you don’t have to wear collared tops all the time and you can still look cool. And on top of this I’ll be sharing my insights, thoughts, and of course questions with my followers to get their views on everything, because every opinion matters! If you want to see anything in particular, I always welcome my followers to drop me DM and I’ll do my best to respond 🙂
Golf needs a makeover – and I’m ready to make a start!
We wish you the best of luck and we are here to support every step of the way on your mission to promote women’s golf in 2020!
If you want to follow Mia on her journey, you can do so here @miaellax